I went up and woke him at 8:15. Still took a while for him to wake up downstairs. Downstairs we played Minecraft, and at one point I said something about how it is nice that real spider don’t act like spiders in Minecraft (actively trying to attack you at night). He said that was creepy: “Even more creepy than mama turning into a zombie in thin air.” We managed to just finish Minecraft, have a quick breakfast, and get out the door at 9:20. Had to coax him out through the few drops of rain.
We drove up to Shani’s. No swing today. He came in humming “Just a Little Love”. She said he should be a singer but didn’t pick up on it being another Erasure song.
He was a little more reluctant to engage in her activities today. First activity was to climb the ladder and move stickers from the back of his hand to a paper at the top. At first he just wanted to “free climb” the ladder. He got through that, then checked out the little tent before we got him to the table where they drew shapes. They then did letters. His letters are quite neat, although he got bored of it quickly. They then played with the putty with things hidden in it. Finally, she introduced him to the game Rush Hour. We did two levels together on the floor, and he liked it. She let us borrow to bring back in two weeks (as she’ll be gone on vacation next week).
A cat came right up to us as we left her basement and we petted it. It was raining harder, and I had to coax him out, under the umbrella, to get to the car. Not playground weather today, so we headed home.
At home he talked about what he could do with coins and his fingers (remembering what he had done with Shani a couple weeks ago). I got him some coins and he got a container. That turned into spinning coins on the floor, and I taught him how to do it. He was excited to figure out how to do it and got quite good at it. We also discovered that if you push on the coin hard from the top it would do a cool flipping thing. August said, “Knock yourself out.” He learned this somewhere (Last Kids?) and used it several times today. I remembered those little paper footballs that we (particularly me and Darrin) would make and flick with our fingers. I made one and August wasn’t too impressed: “Weird. But okay.”
He then had a game where he was playing music for the bully family. He was either making the music scary to scare them away or nice (major) to make them sick. That went on for a long time. I made the baked salmon for lunch and he ate most of his large piece. While we are we watched a video about the game I got him for Christmas, No Thank You, Evil!https://youtu.be/HtXHv9X-9CU
He was really intrigued and wanted to watch the whole thing.
Just before 1 we got going to the dentist. She has moved, and now is just up behind the Snakes and Ladders park. We parked, urged August through the light rain again, and found her place. He was pretty nervous about it, and her location, up an elevator, and then through a hallway that led to a waiting area patio that would be wonderful in the nice weather but now had a thrashing wind cover as a wall, didn’t help. When we got in though she was really nice, and when I lay in the chair he was able to lay on top of me and let her do the check up. No cleaning. She said probably no cleaning until he was 8 or 9.
Successful, we drove up into town and went to the ice cream place. I misheard him about something and he told me he thinks I need to go to his lab for a hearing test: “the hearing part of your brain is a little haywire.” I got a cappuccino instead of ice cream, and when August asked what kind of ice cream I ordered I joked my brain could only order cappuccinos. So then I had a series of little scenarios where I just ordered cappuccinos that had him in stitches. When I said, “Welcome to the refrigerator store…” he really lost it. I had to wait until he was ready for the next funny line. Another good one was when I had the pepper pot General from yesterday ordering thousands of cappuccinos as reinforcements for the troops.
He finished his ice cream and we went downstairs and got a few things at Stop City! We then went home and he did alone time, then we played Minecraft. Then, a bit grumpy but okay when his time was over, he went into his fort. He spent some tiem with Sky Guide, finding the Hubble Telescope, ISS, and a whole series of satellites that must be part of a network.
We then did Hooked on Phonics. He did level 14, easy, but then said the reading was too hard (without really trying it) because he couldn’t have it say individual words, like Rivet can. He did a low level, like 2, but it was way too easy. I got him to go back to 14 by telling him I’d be his Rivet button. When he touched a word on the screen I would read the word out in the General voice. Span was a word of the day.
After talking about how he likes to argue, I finally remembered to show him the “Argument Clinic” sketch from Monty Python. His first Monty Python. Carly got home soon after at 4:45. When she did I put the blanket over him to hide him. This became a game, as he was pretending he was a cat and he wanted me to keep hiding him from Carly. He was laughing hysterically again. Eventually, he started making a fort in front of the couch, humming as he did so.
We had soup for dinner, then I went up to work for an hour. He did his alone time and played Minecraft with Carly. When I came down he was finishing up a creation using tape to tape a bunch of objects together at one end of the dining table. He called it his “noise factory”. I hadn’t really eaten earlier and ate now. We had gotten a fresh loaf of bread at the store, and I used it to make toast. Both he and Carly liked it and kept stealing my pieces, so I had to make us all more.
We then did several levels of Rush Hour, getting through 8. He was doing a pretty impressive job with it. We got him upstairs and Carly gave him a bath. I put him to sleep. He had a Brother and Sister game which I didn’t really understand, where Brother and Bar go to war with her because she wouldn’t give him a diamond she had found. It went on and on, and brought in the General. I finally ended that, and we listened to the Circle Round story “100 Rooms”. Finally got lights off at 10:20 and we listened to a synthesizer artist called Benge. August was instantly hooked, and said, “I love how he uses minor keys…” Not falling asleep, he asked, “How do you bccome a billionaire?” I quickly explained how they are really lucky to have a company they founded get really big. Founded was another word of the day. There was a good lightning show going on outside that we were getting to watch, and he finally, finally fell asleep around 10:45.
Learning Rush Hour:
Learning to spin coins:
Spinning the coin success:
Song of the day:
His first Monty Python:
A little singing improv:
Different attacks of some sort:
